my definition is my words
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: I just don't yet know the words to describe the something that I am.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, D9 – write a threeshot. Also taking advantage of the prompt to play around with more experimental writing. Enjoy!

* * *

**my definition is my words  
**_Chapter 1_

**.**

Sometimes, I have to wonder…what makes a human?  
Where is that little facet that, when turned, makes a human bleed  
but a monster simply squawk like a black crow attempting to be the innocent dove…

But crows are not doves, and monsters are not humans.  
Maybe…monsters are just better at pretending to be a human  
even if they don't understand…  
or _I_ don't understand…but I'm not a monster either, so maybe that's why…  
or rather, I don't _call_ myself a monster. I might as well be.

Sometimes, then, I wonder: what is a monster? What makes one?  
What makes someone a monster? Or not? What makes someone call themselves a monster…

What makes someone call themselves anything?  
What _makes_ someone anything?

I'm not a human. I'm not a monster.  
Rather, those are not words I use to describe me.  
I do not cry or laugh. Sweat or bleed. Flee or chase. I just drift.  
I just exist.

Don't ask me who I am; I can't answer that.  
I am not no-one, nothing, because I exist. Or I say I exist.  
But all else from that is inexact.  
Not blackness: that is too precise, too exact. Something else. Something less black.  
But not white. White is far too bright. And the dusk is…well…

**.**

He is Cherubimon. Or so he says. He calls himself by that name. Others call him by that name.  
Maybe it is his name. But, somehow, it doesn't seem to _fit_.  
Something's wrong with that name. Something missing. Or something extra. Something there.  
Something not there. Something that was there before…or perhaps never there.

It doesn't matter all that much to me. He is he. I am I.  
But "I" is not a name. A pronoun used to replace a name. Replace an identity.  
So then…who am I?

'You are Duskmon.' Or so he says. So he calls me by that name.  
I don't believe that _is_ my name. Things are often called names that aren't theirs. Names that are  
merely ill-fitting labels slapped on, sometimes carelessly with chewing-gum on the back to hold it there.  
It'd dry out, eventually. Or fall off. Or some kid in detention would scrape the chewing gum off the desk bottom  
and then that'd be the end of it. That label.

Names should be everlasting. Or that's what I think. Maybe I believe it too  
but the truth is I don't feel enough to believe. I don't _know_.

And, sometimes. I don't _want_ to know.

**.**

I am a digimon. That is what he says.  
But, in the rippling water under the near fall moon, I see another face.  
A face beneath the mask I wear.  
A face that looks human.

I don't know why I think it does: look like a human. I have never met one. Never remember meeting one.  
And, yet, that is what I think. A human face. Not a digimon one. Or, at least, one that looks like a human  
beneath the mask. Or, maybe, it is just another mask.  
Just like this mask that I've worn for as long as I can remember.

It's a pathetic mask, really. Does not conceal my eyes. Or my face.  
Or maybe it does, because when I take it off, they change.  
Red eyes become blue. Dark, sun-burnt and moon-kissed, skin becomes light and pale:  
innocent.  
I don't know why that word comes to mind.

Innocence. It's another word. Perhaps a meaningless one. A zero on a scale that has infinity between zero and one.  
Everything aside from zero is the opposite of innocence. The guilty. The sullied. The coloured.  
Only pure white can be white. If such purity exists.  
But I digress.

Red eyes become blue. Small slit eyes become larger, wider…and more uncertain.  
I am a plethora of uncertainty as I am.  
And why does my face change so much without the mask?  
Even my hair…long and yellow like the face of the moon to short strands of dark like the starless sky…

Where has the moon gone?

**.**

The moon goes through cycles of death and rebirth. It waxes. It wanes. It disappears. It returns.  
It has a cycle that defines the nights, like the sun defines the day.

No, that is too inexact. Inaccurate. The movement of the sun defines the day, yes, but not like the night.  
It travels through the sky. Starts in the east: that teasing glimmer poking its head over the mountaintop.  
It dips in the west. Below the line of trees. Into the ocean of water beyond.  
It defines a day within its limits and nothing more.

But the moon is not like that. It says constant in a night. Flittered by shadows. Flanked by stars.  
Sometimes, it is a starless night.  
And it changes, every night. A little bigger. A little smaller. A little different from the night before.  
It defines days as parts of a larger whole. Something _meaningful._  
Every day is the same. And they repeat. Endlessly. Uselessly.

Why must the days repeat? What is to be gained from one unchanging day that another cannot offer?  
The night, at least, gives the impression of time flowing within those invisible riverbanks.  
Flowing somewhere.

But even the nights are slow.

**.**

Not much moves in the night. The days, for how unchanging they are, are full of flurries of activity.  
Senseless activity. I am yet to see something accomplished with them. And neither does Cherubimon.  
He is disappointed. I am indifferent. The failure of his servants means nothing to me.  
They call me a servant but I am not one of them. Or, I don't call myself one of them.  
Cherubimon does not call me his servant either.

It's another label. Servant. Master – I am not a master either. An observer, perhaps.  
An observer watches. I see the flurry of activity in the day, but it is the night I watch, the night upon which I stand vigil.  
The night…to which I converse.  
The day doesn't stand around to listen. It comes and goes and returns, unchanged.  
The night changes. The night pauses. It listens. It _breaths_.  
It sings a slow enough dance that I, who cannot dance, can waltz to its tune.

**.**

The dance is slow. Careful. Pallid.  
There is no destination, unlike the singer: that moon whose course is plotted out,  
who reaches an end and a beginning and countless steps in a cycle, spaced out but repeating…  
Like the day, who repeats its pilgrimage from the east to the west and then under earth…

I have no destination. I stand vigil upon the darkness: the darkness in my mind, my heart  
and my world.

In the darkness are my questions. My words. My rememberings.  
After a point – or before a point I suppose – I remember nothing.  
This dance has long since become an endless loop like the night and the day.

I am Duskmon. I am not. I am a digimon. I am not.  
Without my mask I look human. I am not. Without the human I look like a monster. I am not.  
I exist. I dance in endless days and endless nights with the slowly cycling moon.  
I am not nothing. I cannot be nothing.

I just don't yet know the words to describe the something that I am.


	2. Chapter 2

**my definition is my words  
**_Chapter 2_

**.**

Time passes  
a song until it reaches a peak  
and then it rushes, it slows:  
suddenly clumsy, suddenly shy –  
shying away, as though it has a secret  
it wants to keep;  
a secret that I want to tear apart,  
that I seek.

Time has done this: made a slow slewed life  
pallid, the prickles of boredom like dull thorns  
scratching but failing to pierce  
this dark hide…

Time has suddenly started running, rushing  
in a tangle of disarray

And here I am, lost,  
similarly disarrayed.

**.**

Friends and enemies. They matter.  
Even when I don't know who I am, there are ties bound to me:  
to my name that feels as though it doesn't belong to me,  
to my body, my face, my trait –

The knight of darkness, they call me.  
Tall, dark, silent…  
all of them traits that define me: define this shell  
I pretend to be.  
Because though "Duskmon" is a name that rolls badly on my tongue,  
I use it; what else is there for me to use? To call myself?  
I am not a thing, nor am I human.  
I am an existence who is more, but what more  
is a word, or words, still lost to me.

Despite that, friends, and enemies – they matter.  
They matter because there is a battle. A war.  
Humans fighting. Monsters fighting.

Digital Monsters. Digimon. That is who Duskmon is.  
And yet there is still that face that looks all too human  
beneath the mask  
that won't let me accept that monster  
the world claims me to be…

Or, maybe, it's this small part of the world:  
the only part, still, that I know.

**.**

The world is a small piece of a larger puzzle  
but even in this confines, it is too confusing, too chaotic –  
the way the sun and move struggle in the sky,  
winning, losing – never staying.  
The way the light and darkness tangle.  
Why this place is a black dot on the map of the world  
and yet it disobeys all rules of darkness:  
no blindness, no light…

Or, maybe, there is a light, somewhere  
a soft light that doesn't rip and tear and kill  
like on other pieces of this land.

At least the darkness means there's less I need to know  
about this world.

**.**

Darkness is the first thing I recall.  
That spread of…something, holding me close and cold  
and that voice in my ear, guiding me  
when there was nothing to be seen, no road to follow spread  
before me…

The light is, in comparison to that, a dizzying thing  
that holds answers teasingly out of reach,  
too far out of reach.

And I hadn't wanted those answers enough back then  
to give chase.

**.**

I want those answers now. After meeting them. Meeting _him_.

It had been perfect innocent at first. My comrades –  
if I could call them that…but what else was there to call  
those who lived beneath the same roof as I,  
and served the same master?

Though I do not like that term: master  
and servant, bound in servitude…  
yet I follow his orders still.  
I bind myself to such a relationship still.

And it was by those orders, to destroy the eyesores  
in this dark and quiet land, that I went.  
Maybe I wanted them gone as well.  
Annoying little blips of light in a dark landscape.

Nothing had ever…well, annoyed me before.  
Broken that languid flow.  
It was a feeling. Something that broke the monotone.  
It was a feeling I didn't like; I wanted gone.

Later, I would learn the feeling of pain and annoyance would become a fly buzzing in my ear.  
Why I remembered the sound of a fly buzzing, I couldn't say.  
It wasn't the same as Flymon though. That much I knew.  
Why? Again, I couldn't say.

**.**

It was those children. Whispers had preceded them,  
before they'd even come into this continent – the place that was supposed to stand, whole  
while the rest of the world crumbled, out of sight  
like a child growing out of their bedtime tales.

It was they who disturbed the peace: disturbed this aimless, smooth wandering of the times  
that could have gone on forever, as sense was lost in time…  
but it didn't do that; they didn't let it do that,

Instead they trampled upon the peace, upon the monotonous routine  
until the quiet was shattered with grumbles and the moon  
darker than ever before because a cloud of dust had rose up to obscure it  
and there was nothing quiet anymore…

They didn't whine to me but I heard them still; they echoed through the castle,  
through the dark and empty spaces I flitted through like a ghost, a shadow.  
Finally, I decided I would see for myself: this fuss, these children  
who did not belong, who broke the timeless flow.

**.**

I saw them. The children.  
At first there had been nothing interesting about them at all:  
fragile looking, weak, like numerous flies collecting but struggling, still struggling…  
because no matter how many flies there were, they wouldn't be able to defeat a giant beast,  
a monster…

And then they showed their worth. Or how weak Arbormon was:  
Arbormon who had a name for everything, who had words for everything.

Those words had proved useless to him.  
Maybe searching was that important a quest.  
Maybe searching stopped that backslide,  
stopped a monster who should be powerful from being eaten alive  
by a swarm of flies.

My stomach curled. It was a very disgusting sight, suddenly, and my sword moved  
on its own.

Monsters left no carcass, I learnt that day.  
Monsters did not know hesitation, nor blood nor truth.

Suddenly, I didn't care about the truth.  
They asked my name and I gave it to them:  
Duskmon, without hesitation.

I wonder why.  
Maybe I was annoyed again.  
Weak children who had suddenly gone strong.  
Lack of control.

Or maybe I was looking at their faces and thinking  
how very like the face in the water they looked  
and yet here was proof that they were monsters too:  
dressed up just like I,

With a mask to boot.


	3. Chapter 3

**my definition is my words  
**_Chapter 3_

**.**

Somewhere along the lines, I have changed.  
The moon no longer sings to me. The dark no longer calls; instead,  
it is the light straining its tendrils cold to touch my hand, pierce my shoulder, caress my shoulder  
and makes me turn towards that blinding light.

Sometimes, I see a shadow in that blinding light.  
Sometimes it feels familiar. Often it is just a fleeting nightmare that bids me stir  
and I wish it would leave me alone, if only for peace of mind  
but it does not. It calls; it continues to call.

**.**

I find the source of that light. Finally. That boy, that warrior with the spirit  
so different to mind. At first they seem inconsequential things: all of them  
but this one burns. As I lift my sword to strike him down, he burns  
like a fire clinging to the sole that tries to stamp it out.

It burns, and my eyes and something inside burn along with it.  
I feel like a moth trying to draw close to this drunken flame but my wings  
are becoming tatters, and ash, yet I must still –

Where is that me who stared at the moon and the slow moving world?  
Where is that slow moving world?

It has started to go oh so fast and I cannot keep up. I can only give chase  
and yet every move seems to leave me more confused than the last.

Here, I acknowledge the confusion, and the want.

I want to know why this light, that boy, burn me so.  
I want to know why the world has suddenly started moving  
and without me.

**.**

I let my eyes readjust. I search for the darkness and though I struggle  
I find it, wrapped around myself like a stifling blanket. Like a winter's night  
that has suddenly grown too warm – and I wonder why that thought should come to me at all  
when there's been no winter yet that I've seen in this world.

Or maybe it was winter, before, and now this is spring, full of pollen and too bright suns…  
again, why am I thinking these thoughts? Pollen… I feel I know the word  
and yet it is something I've never seen, never come across…

And never has become a remarkably short time, and darkness longer, stretching out  
into this undefined, unknown time

And I wonder if there was something in there, something important, something my body clung to  
even though my mind forgot.

And that was a fire even more painful than that boy of light.

I needed to find him. And…  
I needed to find out what was in the darkness that I'd lost.

**.**

I found him. I searched. Those memories he clung to so desperately told me nothing  
and yet they tore at my heart. I still didn't understand and that fire continued to painfully smoulder.

I needed answers, and yet they weren't forthcoming. Just that burning light  
that only burned more, as he spoke, as he lit up, as he fought –

Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore. I fled.  
And he was the one chasing me.

**.**

He wanted answers from me. I almost laughed. I didn't have them.  
I'd been the one seeking answers that, apparently didn't have.

He asks me a question. Such a simple question: who are you? But I can't answer him  
because, now, I'm even more confused. _He_ says I'm his warrior, the prince of darkness  
but for the first time I can't believe him. There's something else. Something different  
or something more. What does a digimon have to do with a human beyond this impending war?  
But there was something else. I knew there was something else.  
I'd felt it when we fought. I felt it when I hunted. When I was chased.

There was something,  
something…

**.**

So that was what it was.

The memories came suddenly. Painfully. I'd fled without even realising  
into the darkness in which I'd been born, that I remembered so strongly  
even though other memories ran over them now, creating a murky grey.

I wanted someone to tell me it was a lie.  
I wanted someone to tell me it was the truth.

They were malleable then. Hot metal liquid ready to be moulded into shape  
and moulded they were, at first, to the only one who existed beyond the grey –

And then it was shattered. Broken. Forced into the correct shape, the correct skin  
that person who I should have been

But hadn't.


End file.
